A Singaporean woman forges $800,000 for her lover

A woman systematically siphoned more than $800,000 from her employer over four years to pay for the high life so that she could led with her lover.

Frances Leong Kit Jin, 30, an administrative officer with Fuji Horiguchi Engineering in Jurong, did it a little at a time: She repeatedly forged her boss’ signature on cash cheques for sums of between $500 and $5,000 and banked these into her own account.

The court heard that she paid for the car loans, petrol bills and other living expenses of her lover Harry Ng Kok Huat; she also picked up the tab when they travelled, and indulged his hobbies of collecting raw stones, gems, crystals and Chinese teas and pots and spending on Japanese meals for him , even paid for his massages in the country and abroad

Leong pleaded guilty to 15 charges, mainly for forgery involving almost $67,000 and another 320 charges involving $754,693 were taken into consideration.

Her penalty: 5-1/2 years in jail. Apart from items the police have seized also includes $2,000 from her lover and $52,000 in jewellery and watches from her home.

Leong begin to use company funds from October 2003, 2-1/2 years after she started work in the company, which provides engineering services to the shipping and marine industry.

Her lawyer P.O. Ram said she did what she did because she was broke from spending on herself and her lover, whom she met in 1996.

Her offences came to light when the managing director of the company was alerted by the bank to discrepancies in his signatures on two cash cheques. Upon checking, he realised he had not signed for either of them and stopped payment.

Elaborating on the 15 charges, he said that on Oct 30, 2003, she deceived her boss into believing that her claim for a reimbursement allowance of $1,848 was legitimate.

On 13 other occasions, she forged his signature on cash cheques which she fed into her own POSB account; the 15th charge was for pocketing $2,679 in petty cash.

Mr Ram said it was love at first sight when Leong met her lover 12 years ago, when she was 18, and he, a 39-year-old father of three with no steady job.That was when she began splurging on him to impress him. Over the years, she had conceived six times and aborted each of her pregnancies, said Mr Ram. When she was arrested, however, her lover dumped her. She has been in remand since September, and does not want to trouble her family to bail her out.Her lawyer said she regrets bringing pain and suffering to her parents and the losses she has cost her employers.